EL VENDEDOR DE HELADOS

Low-budget horror/comedy delivers enough goods

Clint Howard stars as the titular character who kills people & animals and adds them to his 31 flavors as he roams the suburbs of Southern California.

If you like 90's horror-comedies, like the "Leprechaun" films, you might want to check this one out. It is often entertaining despite the low-budget feel and questionable acting by the kids and Clint Howard is perfect for the title role. He looks just like Jack Kirby's rendition of the Puppet Master from The Fantastic Four comics.

The story is basically the ice cream man vs a group of kids who are about 12-13 years-old. The gore can't be taken seriously, so the movie's hardly horrifying. But it is consistently amusing and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, although at times amateurishly put-together, which is likely due to lack of funds.

The best part of the film is the women, particularly Stephanie Champlin (aka Stephanie Sumers) as the blonde, Janet. She has a few quality scenes (fully clothed). The magnificent Sandahl Bergman, who played Valeria in the 1982 version of "Conan the Barbarian," also has a small role as one of the kid's mother. Lastly, there's the voluptuous Andrea Evans. All three of their roles are too brief, but Stephanie as Janet has just enough screen time.

Jan-Michael Vincent and David Warner have fairly significant roles, the former as a detective and the latter as a pastor. It's nice seeing Vincent again after his 70s-80's heyday. Olivia Hussey is also on hand as a dubious asylum nurse.

The score by Richard Lyons is standard fare with one moving piano-oriented piece that's surprising for a flick of this sort, and yet it somehow fits. It's repeated several times throughout the movie and is exceptional, an unexpected highlight.

It runs 1 hour, 24 minutes, and was shot in Pasadena & San Gabriel, California.

GRADE: C+